New York (AFP) – A former personal lawyer to US President Donald Trump resigned as a top federal prosecutor on Monday, a week after an appeals court ruled she had been serving unlawfully. Alina Habba, 41, announced her resignation as acting US attorney for the District of New Jersey in a statement on X.
“I have decided to step down,” Habba said. “But do not mistake compliance for surrender. This decision will not weaken the Justice Department and it will not weaken me.” Federal prosecutors are subject to Senate confirmation and New Jersey’s two Democratic senators had opposed her nomination. Trump sought to keep Habba in her position on an interim basis, but the appeals court ruled last week that her appointment violated the law regarding the filling of federal vacancies.
It was the second time in a week that a federal court ruled that a US attorney picked by Trump was unlawfully appointed. In the other case, a judge disqualified Lindsey Halligan from serving as the acting US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and threw out the indictments Halligan obtained against Trump foes James Comey, a former FBI director, and New York Attorney General Letitia James. The judge said Halligan had been unlawfully appointed because her predecessor was also serving in an acting capacity and US law does not allow two successive interim prosecutors.
The Trump administration’s appointments of interim US attorneys without Senate confirmation in at least two other states — California and Nevada — have also been met with legal challenges. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the court ruling in Habba’s case had made it “untenable for her to effectively run her office, with politicized judges pausing trials designed to bring violent criminals to justice.”
“These judges should not be able to countermand the President’s choice of attorneys entrusted with carrying out the executive branch’s core responsibility of prosecuting crime,” Bondi said in a statement. Bondi said Habba would join the Justice Department as her senior advisor overseeing US attorneys around the country.
© 2024 AFP
